Complete Works of Emile Zola (1798 page)

On the second day the headmaster having stated that, as the pupils obstinately refused to touch the dishes, no more bread would be supplied, the revolt burst out at noon. It was the day for haricot beans with white sauce.

Big Michu, whose head must have been affected by his frightful hunger, suddenly rose. He took the plate of the usher, who was eating with a famous appetite, to set us at defiance and excite our envy, threw it into the middle of the room, and then burst out singing the “Marseillaise” in a powerful voice. It was like the blast of a trumpet setting us all in action. Plates, glasses, bottles, had a bad time of it. And the masters, striding over the breakage, hastened to leave us in possession of the dining-hall. The puny creature of an usher, in his flight, received a dish of haricot beans on his shoulders, and the sauce made him a broad white collar.

It was a question, however, of fortifying the position. Big Michu was appointed general. He ordered the tables to be piled up against the doors. I remember we had all taken our knives in our hands. And they were still thundering out the “Marseillaise.” The revolt was becoming a revolution. Fortunately we were left to ourselves for three long hours. Apparently the military had been sent for. Those three hours of riot sufficed to calm us.

At the end of the dining-hall were two large windows looking on to the playground. The most timid, horrified at the long impunity granted us, softly opened one of the windows and disappeared. They were followed by degrees by the other pupils. Soon after Big Michu had only about a dozen rebels around him. Then he said to them roughly:

“Follow the others, a single culprit will suffice.”

Then speaking to me, who was hesitating, he added:

“I give you back your word, do you hear?”

When the military had burst open one of the doors, they found Big Michu all alone, seated quietly at the end of a table, in the midst of the broken crockery. He was sent home to his father the same evening. For our part, we gained very little by this revolt. They certainly avoided for some time giving us haricot beans and codfish. Then the dishes reappeared; only the codfish was done with white sauce, and the haricot beans with brown.

VI

It was a long time after that, when I saw Big Michu again. He had not been able to continue his studies. He, in his turn, was cultivating the few bits of land which his father had left him when he died.

“I would have made a bad lawyer or a bad doctor,” he said to me, “for I had a very thick head. It’s much better that I should be a peasant. It’s my trade. All the same you others let me in beautifully. And I, as it so happened, was particularly fond of codfish and haricot beans.”

THE FAST

I

WHEN the vicar ascended the pulpit, in his ample surplice of angelic whiteness, the little baroness was sanctimoniously seated in her customary place, near a hot-air grating, opposite the chapel of the Holy Angels.

After the usual meditation, the vicar delicately passed a fine cambric handkerchief over his lips; then, he opened his arms, like a seraph about to take his flight, bent his head, and spoke. First of all his voice seemed like a stream of running water in the great nave, like an enormous sigh of the wind amidst the leaves. And the puff of wind gradually increased, the breeze became a tempest, the voice rolled beneath the arched roof with the majestic growl of thunder. But, nevertheless, the vicar’s tone, from time to time, even in the midst of his most formidable bursts of rhetoric, suddenly became soft, casting a bright ray of sunshine into the gloomy hurricane of his eloquence.

The little baroness, at the first buzz among the leaves, had taken up the greedy and delighted attitude of a person of refined understanding, making ready to taste all the delicacy of a symphony she loved. She seemed charmed at the exquisite sweetness of the harmonious sentences at the commencement; she then followed the swelling of the voice, and the rising of the final storm, husbanded with so much science, with the attentiveness of a connoisseur; and when the voice had reached its highest pitch, when it thundered, increased in volume by the echoes of the nave, the little baroness was unable to restrain a discreet bravo and a nod of satisfaction.

Then there was celestial joy, and all devout persons were in ecstasies.

II

The vicar, however, was saying something; his music accompanied words. He was preaching on fasting, and was relating how agreeable the mortifications of the creature were to the Almighty. Bending over the edge of the pulpit, in the attitude of a great white bird, he sighed:

“The hour has come, my brothers and sisters, when all of us like Jesus should bear our cross, crown ourselves with thorns, ascend our Calvary, with naked feet among the flints and brambles.”

The little baroness no doubt found the sentence nicely turned, for she gently blinked her eyes, as if tickled at the heart. Then, the vicar’s symphony lulling her, she let herself fall into a semi-dreamy state, full of inward voluptuousness, whilst following the melodious sentences.

Opposite her, she saw one of the long windows of the choir, grey with fog. The rain could not have ceased. The dear child had come to hear the sermon in most abominable weather. One must of course suffer a little when one is religious. Her coachman had received a frightful downpour, and she even, on jumping to the ground, had slightly wetted the tips of her boots. Her miniature brougham, however, was an excellent one, closing well and padded like an alcove. But it is so sad to see, through the damp glasses, a line of busy umbrellas, hurrying along on either pavement! And she reflected that if it had been fine, she could have come out in her victoria. That would have been much more gay.

At heart, her great fear was that the vicar might hurry too quickly through his sermon. She would then have to wait for her carriage, for she would certainly never consent to pick her way in such weather. And she made the calculation, that at the rate the vicar was going, his voice would never hold out for two hours; her coachman would get there too late. This uneasiness somewhat troubled her pious pleasure.

III

The vicar, with sudden outbursts of wrath which brought him up erect, his hair all in a flutter, his fists stretched forward, like a man troubled by the avenging spirit, thundered forth:

“And above all woe to ye, sinners of the gentle sex, if you do not pour the perfume of your remorse, the fragrant oil of your repentance on the feet of Jesus. Believe me, tremble and fall on both knees on the stone. It is by coming and confining yourselves in the purgatory of penitence, opened by the church during these days of universal contrition; it is by wearing down the flags with your foreheads pallid with fasting, by becoming acquainted with the pangs of hunger and cold, silence and darkness, that you will deserve divine pardon, on the brilliant day of triumph!”

The little baroness, drawn from her reverie by this terrible explosion, slowly nodded her head, as if she were exactly of the angry priest’s opinion. One must secure birches, go into some very dark, damp, icy corner, and there whip oneself; there was no doubt about that in her mind.

Then she resumed her musings, and was lost in comfort and. tender ecstasy. She was seated at her ease on a low chair with a broad back, and had an embroidered cushion under her feet, which prevented her feeling the cold stone flags. She was leaning half back, enjoying the church, that great vessel pervaded with vapours of incense, and the secluded parts of which, full of mysterious shadows, were becoming rich in delightful visions. The nave, with its hangings in red velvet, its gold and marble ornaments, its appearance of an immense boudoir filled with disturbing perfumes, and lit with the subdued light of a night lamp, closed and as if ready for superhuman love, had gradually enveloped her with the charm of its pomp. It was the festival of her senses. Her pretty, plump person, flattered, petted, fondled, was indulging itself. And the voluptuousness she tasted was due above all to her feeling herself so small amidst such immense beatitude.

But without her being aware of it, what tickled her most deliciously, was the warm breath from the hot-air grating which opened almost beneath her skirts. She was very chilly, was the little baroness. The hot-air grating discreetly wafted its warm caresses along her silk stockings. Drowsiness overtook her in this delightful bath.

IV

The vicar was still full of wrath. He plunged all the devout persons who were present into the boiling oil of hell.

“If you listen not to the voice of God, if you listen not to my voice, which is that of God Himself, I tell you truly, you will one day hear with anguish the crackling of your bones, you will feel your flesh melting on burning coal, and then you will cry out in vain: ‘Pity, Lord, pity, I repent!’ God will be merciless, and will kick you back into the bottomless pit!”

At this last sentence a shudder ran through the congregation. The little baroness, who was decidedly going to sleep under the influence of the warm air, which circulated among her skirts, smiled vaguely. She knew the vicar very well, did the little baroness. He had been her guest at dinner on the previous evening. He was extremely partial to truffled salmon pâté, and pomard was his favourite wine. He was certainly a handsome man, between thirty-five and forty, dark, with a visage so round and so rosy, that one would have had no difficulty in taking his priestly countenance for the merry face of a servant girl on a farm. He was also a society man, played a good knife and fork, and had a smart tongue. He was adored by the women, and the little baroness was passionately fond of him. He said to her in such a delightfully sugary voice: “Ah! madam, with such a toilette, you would damn a saint.”

And he did not damn himself, the dear man. He ran about serving out the same polite attention to the countess, the marchioness, and his other penitents, and that made him the spoilt child of the ladies.

When he was the guest of the little baroness, of a Thursday, she took care of him as if he were some dear creature to whom the least draught might give a cold, and to whom a bad dish would certainly give an indigestion. In the drawing room his arm-chair was beside the fireplace; at table, the servants had orders to keep a careful eye on his plate, to pour out a certain pomard, aged twelve years, to him alone, and he drank it, and he drank it closing his eyes fervently, as if he had been taking the communion.

He was so good, so good, was the vicar! Whilst from the height of the pulpit he spoke of crackling bones and of limbs being grilled, the little baroness in her semi-state of slumber, saw him at her table, sanctimoniously wiping his lips and saying to her: “This bisque soup, madam, would cause you to find grace with God the Father, had not your beauty already sufficed to ensure your entry into paradise.”

V

When the vicar had done with anger and threats he began to sob. Those were his usual tactics. He would be almost on his knees in the pulpit, showing only his shoulders, then, all at once, he would rise up, then bend, as if struck down by grief, wipe his eyes, with a loud crumpling sound of starched muslin, throw his arms up in the air, to the right and left, and take the postures of a wounded pelican. That was the bouquet, the final, the grand orchestral piece, the exciting scene of the catastrophe.

“Weep, weep,” he said tearfully in an expiring voice; “weep on yourselves, weep on me, weep on God—”

The little baroness was fast asleep, with her eyes open. The heat, the incense, the increasing obscurity had quite overcome her. She had gathered herself up into a ball, and was entirely absorbed with the voluptuous sensations she experienced, whilst slyly dreaming of very pleasant things.

Beside her, in the chapel of the Holy Angels, was a great fresco, representing a group of handsome, half-nude young men, with wings at their backs. They smiled with a smile of bashful lovers, and in their inclining, kneeling attitudes, seemed to be worshipping some invisible baroness. The handsome fellows had tender lips, skins as soft as satin, and muscular arms! The worst of it was that one of them bore a striking resemblance to the young Duke de P — , one of the little baroness’ good friends. She was wondering, in her sleep, whether the duke would look well in the nude, with wings at his back? And at times she imagined the great pink cherub was wearing the duke’s swallow-tail coat. Then the dream became more distinct: it was really the duke, very scantily clad, who, from the depth of darkness, was blowing her kisses.

When the little baroness awoke she heard the vicar pronouncing the final sentence:

“And that is the grace I wish you.”

For a moment she was bewildered; she thought the vicar was wishing her the young duke’s kisses.

There was a great noise with chairs. Every one left; the little baroness had guessed correctly, her coachman had not yet arrived at the bottom of the steps. That devil of a vicar had hurried on his sermon, robbing his penitents of at least twenty minutes’ eloquence.

And as the little baroness was waiting impatiently in one of the aisles, she met the vicar, who was precipitately leaving the vestry. He was looking for the time at his watch, and had the busy air of a man who does not wish to miss an appointment.

“Ah! how late I am, dear madam,” he said. “You know I am expected by the countess. There is a spiritual concert, followed by a small collation.”

THE SHOULDERS OF THE MARCHIONESS

I

THE marchioness sleeps in her great bed, beneath ample yellow satin curtains. At noon, at the smart stroke of the clock, she decides on opening her eyes.

The room is warm. The carpets, the hangings over the doors and windows, make it a soft nest, which defies the cold. It is pervaded by warmth and perfumery, and is like everlasting spring.

And, so soon as the marchioness is well awake, she seems a victim to sudden anxiety. She casts off the bedclothes and rings for Julie.

“Did madam ring?”

“Tell me, does it thaw?”

Oh! good marchioness! in what a troubled tone did she make this inquiry! Her first thought is about the terrible cold weather, the north wind which she does not feel, but which blows so keenly in the hovels of the poor. And she asks if Heaven has been merciful, whether she can allow herself to be warm without remorse, without thinking of all those who shiver.